I did try using MinGW for a while, but the build process for that seems even more broken than for Borland.

Actually, perl builds nicely with mingw32. I built the 5.8.0 several times using the mingw-gcc that comes with Dev-C++, when I didn't wanna wait for the ActiveState, and I didn't want to buy VC++ to be able to test embedding. I also built extensions, and I've embedded the Perl interpreter with no trouble at all. All I did was read and follow the instructions (I had done neither anywhere before). However, for some reason it wants to use dmake, which seems to be a make version not compatible with anything else this side of the sun. But using that to build Perl, then nmake for everything else as soon as it is built works just fine.

However, I have no idea what the take is on huge files in that build. So maybe you can't use it for that reason. And if Borland is fine for you, no reason to switch of course.

You have moved into a dark place.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

It's a valid point. The last time I tried MinGW, it was version 2 and I was attempting to build 5.6.1. I downloaded MinGW-3.0.0-rc4 whilst I was sleeping with the intention of trying this out on 5.8.1. I just haven't got to that yet, but will once the glee of having achieved the Borland build begins to wear off.

Essentially, I had gotten much further with Borland previously so it was a no-brainer to try that first this time around. Using MinGW would be preferable in at least some ways to Borland. Having access to the sources of the runtime libraries mean that if (for example) the large file support was missing, then I could more easily correct that than with the Borland stuff. I haven't tried to pull apart and reassemble a .dll in a long time, which is what I would probably need to do to fix the Borland CRT.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller
If I understand your problem, I can solve it! Of course, the same can be said for you.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other